sad day -- flotrack is charging for the rupp - andrews mile

the biz model has changed overnight. cheap telecomm hardware means the big 12, sec, wcc, acc, beast, etc. can build their own video dist networks and actually make money dropping feeds to indivdual cable providers, bypassing costly rentals of available time slots from fox locals, espn2, etc. which they never made money from in the end. thus flotracking, runnerspaces, etc. are no longer needed by college coaches given they have their own low coast athletic conferece video network now. hope this helps.

What could be wrote:

I would pay a subscription to Flotrack if they had the rights to stream good meets. They do a better job than whoever has rights to NCAAs.

Their announcers know way more about the athlete than the NBC crew. Ato Boldon knows some people and can speak to experience. Thats about it.

This may be true, but the Flo announcers also act like 18 year-old boys. They aren't funny and are pretty unprofessional. Asking anyone to pay $150/year for their content is a joke. The point made about ESPN is a fair comparison, but instead of their cable cost, I'd compare their Insider feature to what Flotrack is doing. Insider costs $8.95/month, $3.33 a month for a year subscription or $2.50 for a two-year subscription. Those are reasonable and you get some great recruiting, draft and long-form content, plus ESPN the Magazine.

The issue with Flotrack is that they are a fanboy site. They've always been that way. If they were stepping up how they did things that'd be one thing, but they aren't even close to the same realm of professionalism as other sports media entities. Many might like their playful and immature attitudes, but it's what keeps me away from their site.

I've been out of the country for 2.5 weeks so I'm glad to know there is a Rupp-Andrews mile.

Rojo said it's at the Armory?

I thought the Armory had a streaming deal with youtube?

I have no problem with Flotrack charging for stuff (and we've talked of having a subscription part of letsrun) but if they're going to charge to watch this meet when others would stream it for free and bring a larger audience this only makes since if the meet is getting a cut of the subscription $.

I doubt that's the case here so maybe this decision will change. If not, you'll live being able to wait to watch it a few hours later. Flotrack needs to pay the bills, but LetsRun would stream a race like this for free and I'm sure others would as well. That means a bigger audience for the sponsors so I don't know why they wouldn't go that route.

Anyone remember trackmeets.com? I think they had a free live stream 24/7 from the Armory. Granted the stream sucked (this was like 8 years ago) and didn't have announcers but when a big meet is on the Armory the in stadium announcers are pretty good.

Wejo, everyone knows Flotrack needs to pay the bills, hence why they've worked out partnerships (ex. Brooks PR Invite) and advertising. It's even understandable that they start charging for some of their content. However, with limited track meets live streamed, for them to say you need to pay $150/year to watch them is a bit extreme. That's a lot of money, especially if you don't want to watch more than 1-2 races from that meet. Flotrack can pretend they are a professional sports media entity, but their immaturity and lack of value for most of what they produce shows that they are expecting fans to pay for amateur coverage. I hope the subscription money they bring in helps them professionalize their coverage, but until that happens, I think the vast majority of fans will stay away from subscribing.

Says something about media respect for the sport when the "Olympic Network" NBC Sports Channel, desperate for sports to cover, would rather show sport fishing, discussions about the past NFL season or Peruvian motor sports rather than T&F.

Cheap seats at The Armory cost $50 each. A decent view costs $70 to $110. The sport is shooting itself the foot.

I really dislike Flotrack now. I hope that someone starts a new running site to compete with them.

I'm not disagreeing with you uphill workout.

I definitely don't pay to watch any of the videos and don't see why a meet would want you to pay either unless they were getting a $ cut. Same thing with the coaches. If you're charging to watch my video, I'd want a cut of the $.

If meets are paying Flotrack decent money to broadcast them LetsRun should get in that business. The way I see it, the meet brings the audience to Flotrack not Flotrack bringing the audience to the meet.

If the meets are paying Flotrack under the belief Flotrack brings the audience to the meet, then they should be broadcast on LetsRun as our audience is a lot bigger than Flotrack's.

Rupp is racing a mile in Boston. Andrews is racing a 1k in NYC. Hopefully Flotrack isn't being paid to broadcast these events AND charging their viewers. That would be a douchebag move, IMO, to double dip. We probably will never know the truth since Flotrack lives in a distortion field where they try to create their own reality.

wejo wrote:

I've been out of the country for 2.5 weeks so I'm glad to know there is a Rupp-Andrews mile.

Rojo said it's at the Armory?

I thought the Armory had a streaming deal with youtube?

Wejo must still be suffering from jet-lag and sickness, but what can you expect when you go to Africa? I guess a few runners interviews. Wejo went to African and didn't interview a single runner - of course he wasn't in Kenya or Ethiopia but that's irrelevant.

There is no Andrews/Rupp mile that I'm aware of. Andrews is running 1k. Rupp mile.I believe. Not 100% sure. I dont think a website exists with entry lists. I looked for it.

eric cartman wrote:

[quote]oh wise one wrote:

i'm going to lick your tears when you can't watch your golden boy galen rupp run a 3:57. letsrun survives because it has the laziest (and best) business model.

Cheapest and laziest for LRC? Get real.

Videos are way lazier.All videos are basically lazy as you don't even have to excerpt them, tell what is important, etc. You film the interview and you are done. With print, the reporter films it and then has to analyze it, take highlights, etc.

Think about it.

A real video site would do this as well. When you turn on ESPN, they don't show the whole Bill Belicheck press conference. They give you the highlights.

And then when you consider Flotrack relies on many unpaid people uploading the videos for free - you realize it's little more than a PR piece for college coaches/shoe companies.

I'd be happy to support Flotrack with a subscription, but $150/year is just way out of line.

How much was WCSN/Universal Sports? In better years it was, what, $30/year for all Golden League, Grand Prix and IAAF Champs events?

I haven't investigated it, but is there any promise as to which meets will be covered? I'd be pissed if I plopped down my credit card only to later learn that Payton Jordan, Husky Invite, etc., were not included, and all I got was "Drills With People Who Live In Austin".

jkhgf wrote:

Flotrack is the sort of thing that can make some side dough on subscriptions but can't survive on it. It needs to find a way to sustain itself on advertising money or it will pass.

Flotrack has found a way to sustain itself on advertising, but also on getting meets to pay for live streaming. This is how they've been able to stabilize their cash flow and actually make money. You'd be surprised how much they make off of advertising and are actually half way decent at offering value for bigger advertising partnerships (ex. Brooks PR Invite).

The subscription model is being pushed out in a very unorganized fashion. They don't list the actual value that's coming from the offer, besides access to some meets and videos. But what meets are they going to show? Will they increase the quality and depth of the videos subscribers can view? They obviously didn't do their research, as $20/month and $150/year is way beyond what the vast majority of media sites that do this kind of subscription model offer.

I think everyone understands the need for Flotrack to have a pay-for section of their site. They want to grow, which means they need money, and it can't come from more advertising or increasing meets that pay them, as they've already tapped these avenues out. The next logical step is for them to have a pay-for section.

The big issue here is two-fold. The first, which has been brought up, is the expense and value of this subscription. What are you getting for the dollar and does the paid dollar match the worth? At this point, the answer to both questions is no.

The second major point is that this subscription model doesn't help the sport. Our sport (roads and T&F) need exposure. Locking some of the bigger meets (I assume) behind a subscription wall, harms the overall exposure of these events. High school kids aren't going to shell out the money to watch these meets, neither are weekend warriors who might be interested in learning more about the sport. I know Flotrack won't hide everything, but having full access is something our sport needs more of, not less of.

This Flotrack debate should be showing those with some power in the sport that there is a need for a better website, as well as meet coverage. Sites like Flotrack, LR, Runnerspace, Milesplit, etc., have been doing a good job for years, but the powers that be at USATF need to realize that the sport needs an organized media model that can help it both provide information to already established fans, as well as reaching out to new fans and providing them with entertainment that matches or exceeds what they are finding with other sports.

The lack of true media organization, specifically on the digital side of media, is incredibly poor for our sport. Look at the World Marathon Majors site. It has so much potential, but falls so incredibly short. Look at most major track and field meet websites. They are for the most part sub-par, especially from build up knowledge and excitement around the meet. This is a big problem, one that needs to be addressed, but no one is willing to step in and address it. Flotrack is doing the best job at covering the sport as a whole (LR is a close second in my mind), but what does that say about the online media and the state of our sport?

wejo wrote:

I'm not disagreeing with you uphill workout.

I definitely don't pay to watch any of the videos and don't see why a meet would want you to pay either unless they were getting a $ cut. Same thing with the coaches. If you're charging to watch my video, I'd want a cut of the $.

If meets are paying Flotrack decent money to broadcast them LetsRun should get in that business. The way I see it, the meet brings the audience to Flotrack not Flotrack bringing the audience to the meet.

If the meets are paying Flotrack under the belief Flotrack brings the audience to the meet, then they should be broadcast on LetsRun as our audience is a lot bigger than Flotrack's.

What are the numbers? I assume you have them for Flotrack as well if you're making a statement like this...

Ace_RF wrote:

What are the numbers? I assume you have them for Flotrack as well if you're making a statement like this...

It isn't hard to compare two sites' traffic numbers. Alexa is a simple reporting site that's at least somewhat accurate. Besides, the guys running the media sites have plenty of time to chat and learn basic things like this at some of the major meets. There is plenty of business being talked in the press tent at events like the Olympic Trials and U.S. Championships that have plenty of down time.

Alexa is about Alexa his and not web hits. Reports say that if you add the Alexa widget to yor Javascript you can jack up your website's rating. The same reports say that venture capitalisrs won't use Alexa ratings since they don't represent any useful metric.

One day the internet world will move on from using the term "hits". I cannot imagine where it is useful as an analytic term, but when deceiving visitors to impress them or advertisers to separate them from their money.

Unique visitors

Visits

Page Views

Ad Impressions

Time on site average

Those are the analytics that count.

google analytics is a sham useful only to gearheads. you can easily fool google analytics increasing hits by 10x to 1000x by getting search robots to scan your site and aging out every page. numerous web sites have been slapped down by potential investors upon close inspection of their web logs. it's criminal how this has transgressed.